Independence

FANtastic weekend. After Friday's ear fiasco, I cleaned up the wound, took a shower, put my hair up, and took to the streets to celebrate sweet sweet independence. Well, not exactly to the streets but to a fonda (like a mini state fair) not far from my apartment with some friends. We drank chicha (like wine but doesn't ferment as long so it's sweeter), ate anticucho (like a shishkabob with hunks of steak and chorrizo), and walked around looking at all of the chilean crafts. Aprarently that fonda was the most high-class of them all... as high class as a state-fair-like event can be I guess.

Saturday during the day I visited the general cemetery. I had heard that it's beautiful, and it's in my Lonely Planet book as a place to visit. When I first walked in, I was in an older section that must have been where the wealthy families are buried. The graves were big and made of old stone. One thing Molly had told me about the cemetery was that it struck her how many of the graves had fresh flowers, and she was totally right. A lot of them not only have fresh bouquets of flowers, but the whole grave would be planted like a mini-garden. Then there were big buildings that were like the apartment-building version of graves (photo), but even those were covered in flowers and had really sweet engravings. I was almost reduced to tears several times.



The less-wealthy section was really cool^. Most of the plots had pinwheels, soccer team flags, flowers, and even tents over them. I thought it looked like more fun to be buried there than with the rich people, but both sections had their charms. I'm really glad I went. That night I went out with Mariana!!! I met her and another friend at Mariana's house and from there we went to the fonda at the National Soccer Stadium. The crowd was definitely different from the night before, but we got terremotos and chorripan so I was more than happy. THEN we went to Providencia to find somewhere to dance and found a Cuban night club that was playing salsa and merengue. It was a smallish joint and for part of the night they had a live band! Siempre lo paso demasiado bien con la Flaca.

Sunday the weather was gorgeous so I walked to the park to do some homework. It was really busy with families with little kids, and kite-flying is something that everybody seems to do. It was fun to be surrounded by cute chilean kids and their parents for a while. The weather was absolutely gorgeous all weekend. Funny, because today is the first day of spring and it has been cold and rainy all day.

To welcome spring, there was a ceremony in the center of the city today where they threw flower petals and ticker tape out the windows of building around this small plaza. I went with one of my friends from soccer class. It was great and made me think that there should be something similar in every city to welcome spring. I guess in MN in March it's usually too effing cold to get everybody outside for something like that, but it made me feel really happy.

I'm throwing in a picture of the pizza I got when we went out for dinner with our program coordinator the other night, mostly for my mama the unofficial (Italian) food critic. And one of a wicked cool sunset that I saw out my kitchen window the other night. Life is good!